Natties

Today was the first day of the UPA Championships in Sarasota, FL. I have several friends playing across all four divisions (Open, Womens, Mixed, Masters) and today they collectively went 1-11. Wow, I think I need new friends. Hopefully they'll have better second days.

I went to Club Nationals once, in 2001, with a Mixed (coed) team called Tattoo Hottie. It was just after 9/11, and we were riding some sort of a bizarre NYC survivors high. One of our players literally had sprinted from his worksite around the WTC as one of the towers fell; he happened to have his camera with him that day in an effort to document why he didn't deserve a parking ticket, and so he has these amazing shots of the tower collapse that he took as he ran away from it. He would give these pep talks in team huddles, urging us to play our hearts out because you literally did not know what life had in store for you tomorrow. It sort of motivated us. I mean, I could laugh ironically at the hubris of it all, and yet I also took it to heart. We wore FDNY shirts and made ourselves the loudest team on the field, and we swept through sectionals and regionals without a loss. At Nationals we won our first two games by relatively commanding leads, and then we proceeded to lose seven in a row. I was injured in the finals at Regionals (bruised rib) and saw limited playing time at Nationals (though I deserved to get more PT, right?), but I'll never forget the feeling of being there, on what for the tiny world of ultimate frisbee is "the big stage." When I got a sweet, but meaningless, diving block in our penultimate game, our captain said to me, "you can tell your grandkids some day that you got a big diving block at Nationals." Well, no, I won't, but I still remember that block pretty darn clearly. The game has evolved dramatically in six years, and the teams are much more athletic and well-balanced now, and I doubt -- hell, I know -- that the 2001 Tattoo Hottie would not stand a chance these days.

But damn, I wish I were playing disc right now.